Prez wrote on Nov 28, 2011, 21:56:So piracy is so bad that Ghost Recon has to be a free-2-play abomination, but not for Rainbow Six? I'm thinking we'll be finding out soon that the PC version has been canned.

We can always hope. The abortion that concept video showed should never be released on PC.

Teddy wrote on Nov 27, 2011, 07:59:The LAW says that Piracy, be it music, video or software IS NOT THEFT. They have plenty of categories of theft, from petty theft, grand theft, larceny, robbery, and note that NOT ONE OF THOSE CATEGORIES is piracy related. Not one.

You're welcome to ignore the personal attacks, I throw them in because you've earned them. Particularly by being such a complete and utter hypocrite. You accuse me of not bothering to read everything when you conveniently skip over the parts of everyone's posts where they explain IN DETAIL that they're well aware that piracy is wrong and illegal, yet you still accuse them of trying to rationalize or justify because they don't agree with your idiotic, incorrect (and completely proven so) definition of piracy.

You are 100% correct, legally it is not theft. That said, I don't begrudge people calling it that, because it's a colloquialism. "He stole my girlfriend" or "she took my idea" and other such things are good examples. Whether actual property or ownership is involved or not we often use "theft" and "took" and "stole" as slang terms.

I object to misuse of language in general, and I specifically object to the misuse of it when speaking about legal issues. People spreading misinformation about the law does a disservice to everyone.

The only reason these people want to call it theft is because theft has a more intrinsic negative emotional response since most people have had something stolen from them in their life. The argument is that it makes it easier to convince people that it's wrong if they can convince them that it's 'theft'. The problem with that is that it's an outright lie. It's fraudulent and they know it, and that is what I refuse to accept.

So rather than try to educate people on what the actual law is and why it's important, the industry simply lies and there are people out there that think it's OK. Worse, they do everything in their power to try and spread the lie.

This is the same industry that lies on it's taxes to screw people who did their jobs well out of royalties owed, remember. Yep, Forrest Gump was a huge financial failure, can't afford to pay you, sorry. Avatar? Yes we know it was the biggest selling movie of all time, just... eh... not big enough. Sorry.

Our industry is dying, you need to enact new laws to save us! What? We've set record profits every year for the last 10 years? Never mind that, JUST SAVE US!

Granted that doesn't take into account Origin sales since they refuse to report that number, but when you also take into account the player count and take note that PC players are, on average, outnumbered 3:1 by console players, then you can fairly easily extrapolate the difference in sales.

The gap is narrower than it is in many other games (MW3 for example) but it's still quite obvious that the console versions significantly outsold the PC version.

Teddy wrote on Nov 25, 2011, 14:05:No one is arguing whether it's illegal or immoral, so there's no justifying of anything going on, you utter fucking retard, They're arguing the fact that for some reason you (and apparently some other idiot on here) seem incapable of understanding the difference.

And perhaps you should not just read one of my posts and go off half cocked, but rather read the conversation before throwing the verbal filth around. Had you done so, you would have seen I actually acknowledged that, but pointed out my reason for posting that link was more to what the US Attorney said to the media, and the ramifications it has going forward; so if you're going to quote the article, be sure you quote the relevant part:

"'Music piracy is stealing and, unless you want to end up in a federal prison, donít do it,' said U.S. Attorney Chuck Rosenberg in a statement trumpeting the verdict."

I've pretty much come to expect comments at that level from you, which is why I really don't care about the personal attacks you throw in as well.

QED.

^D^

And as a gamer, you should know full well that what an attorney 'thinks' is completely irrelevant to the law. Ask Jack Thompson about that one. He was grandstanding and spouting the exact words his clients wanted him to, nothing more and not even close to a comment that in any way shape or form defines the law. Hell, Jack Thompson called video games 'Murder Simulators', he was an attorney at the time, I guess it must be true right?

The LAW says that Piracy, be it music, video or software IS NOT THEFT. They have plenty of categories of theft, from petty theft, grand theft, larceny, robbery, and note that NOT ONE OF THOSE CATEGORIES is piracy related. Not one.

You're welcome to ignore the personal attacks, I throw them in because you've earned them. Particularly by being such a complete and utter hypocrite. You accuse me of not bothering to read everything when you conveniently skip over the parts of everyone's posts where they explain IN DETAIL that they're well aware that piracy is wrong and illegal, yet you still accuse them of trying to rationalize or justify because they don't agree with your idiotic, incorrect (and completely proven so) definition of piracy.

jacobvandy wrote on Nov 25, 2011, 18:15:Lol, forget having a late start date, I've heard about some people waiting 6-8 hours in a queue before getting on a server.

And they didn't go to a different server because...?

If they insisted on playing on a server that had a huge wait time, that's really their own fault. Right now for example, there are only 3 servers with queues, the rest are all instant.

Ah, I found the story about it, has a screenshot of all the queues being 3-8 hours. Must have been a peak time: PC Gamer

Bizarre. I logged off and on a few times over the course of the day and my server screen never looked anything like that. That said, note that some of the servers say German, perhaps the EU servers were worse off than the NA ones.

The real point here is "who cares?" The idiots that are running the companies are using this as an excuse to make some of the most retarded marketing decisions north of the RIAA being pulled kicking and screaming into the internet age.

^D^

Jebus, did you even read the link you quoted? Read it again, dope.

"Gitarts was convicted of conspiracy to violate the NET Act (.pdf), which makes it a crime to infringe a copyright "for purposes of commercial advantage or private financial gain"; to pirate $1,000 or more in music within 180 day period; or to distribute any pirated content before its release date. "

He was convicted of copyright infringement, and conspiracy to do so, NOT THEFT. The only one who said anything of theft was the prosecuting attorney, which was nothing more than grandstanding commentary on his part. If it was theft, then the case would have been about theft, the charges would have been about theft and the verdict would have been about theft. None of those were the case.

No one is arguing whether it's illegal or immoral, so there's no justifying of anything going on, you utter fucking retard, They're arguing the fact that for some reason you (and apparently some other idiot on here) seem incapable of understanding the difference.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Nov 24, 2011, 17:10:Nobody is denying that piracy is an issue. However, since Steam I haven't pirated any games. Even Battlefield 3 - which I am really interested - I have refused to buy or pirate because of its requirement for Origin and refusal to be sold on Steam. And games that are priced too high - which previously I would have pirated - I now wait to go on sale or pass on. Pirating games is easy but buying games on Steam is even easier.

That's a great point. Ease of use with something like Steam far surpasses piracy. My friends even commented to me how archaic Origin was a few days ago when we all had to patch BF3 manually and it was a clunky process at best. One of them said "I'm not used to even doing this stuff anymore".

Funny, Origin automatically updated BF3 for me without even having to look at it.

^Drag0n^ wrote on Nov 25, 2011, 10:14:Keep rationalizing stealing. I hope that works out for you. Even my 5 year old niece sees what is wrong with that logic.

^D^

Then your 5 year old niece has some piss poor teachers if no one has bothered to explain proper logic. Then again, apparently you haven't got a clue what logic is either, so you're just another one of those people teaching her how to be a proper idiot.

Theft is depriving someone of something they own without their permission. Feel free to look up the definition. If you need some tutoring on what the words in that definition mean come back here and we can go through them one step at a time.

Piracy/Copyright infringement is no less illegal, but only a complete fucking retard who understands neither the law nor the definition of the word actually thinks it's 'theft'.

contemplate how many of these million bought the hardened edition which came with elite and all the dlc and was a pretty fair deal for most gamers.

How much did it cost, and how is it a "fair deal"? I'd like to understand how these people are not just volunteering themselves to be nickled and dimed to extraordinary, epic lengths.

Regular edition is $60, hardened is $100. If you're one of those people that KNOWS they're going to like the game and knows they're going to buy all the DLC, then as long as they ship 3 DLC packs in a year (I believe they're currently running about 4 per year and were planning on doing more this time around), then you've saved some cash and gotten access to all the functions of elite for a year. Even if you don't resubscribe next year, you keep the DLC that was released while you were a subscriber.

I didn't buy the game, so I still have some questions. I remember them mentioning that it was going to be useable in Black Ops and MW3 and future titles, so my question is, if I were a subscriber, do I get DLC for both games for free? Or just the current one? Presumably you only get it for free if it's released while you're a subscriber, and since I suspect Black ops DLC is done with now that MW3 is out, then I guess it's not an issue, but it's an interesting question to me nonetheless.

It remains to be seen if the damage buff vs infantry is going to make it worse or balance it out after that.

I played at lunch and it rapes infantry which is stupid because it already was too good versus infantry. The wonky physics stuff was annoying but if you ate a full burst from AA you were dead no matter how you juked. Overall AA got buffed which is totally pointless considering how good it is already. But hey whatever, I'll whore it up and hopefully other people will too and pubbies will cry until its fixed.

It's been a month, of course people want some of the obvious balance problems and technical issues fixed. There isn't really a favorable light to put this in. Some very minor fixes, some small balance changes that don't address core concerns and slightly improved squad functionality that doesn't address the root problem.

I hope the next patch is better, my only consolation is that this was probably being worked on before release so maybe a more comprehensive one is just slightly down the road.

To play devil's advocate... 'if you eat a full burst from an AA gun, you're dead no matter how you juked'? Are you seriously suggesting it should be any different? The cannon is larger than you... I should damn well hope if you get hit by full burst it kills you. Hell, a full burst from an assault rifle kills you, why shouldn't an AA cannon do the same?

If you're out in the open and any sort of vehicle decides to kill you, that should pretty much be it for you. That's not a balance issue, that's just logic.

The problem I had with it, was the ability for the AA to bounce you out from behind cover and kill you just by spamming on your location. That has absolutely been fixed.

Verno wrote on Nov 22, 2011, 12:07:Really disappointing. No IRNV nerf. No taclight nerf. No USAS+Frag nerf. A Battlefield game where cover doesn't matter is not a Battlefield game. AA inexplicably got buffed even though it was already absurdly powerful versus...well everything.

Many users are still reporting the same crash stuff as before the patch to boot. They need to patch faster than this, waiting a month for this patch was a big letdown.

Bear in mind that the AA got a nerf to go alongside the buff it got. No idea how it sits just yet. The 'knocking you about' when getting hit by AA as infantry has been nerfed, which contributed to the problem of them being overpowered since once you started getting hit by one it became very difficult to get to cover when you lose control of your character.

It remains to be seen if the damage buff vs infantry is going to make it worse or balance it out after that.

Just played for a few rounds myself (badly), and the spawn in TDM and Conq seemed much less prone to putting me next to an enemy (though it did happen once out of my many, many deaths).

Adding unranked servers should make competitive players happy, and allow people to set their servers up for flight practice without getting boosters on them.

I see a lot to like in that patch, personally. Of course people will scream the end of the world when their own personal issues aren't touched in a patch, but that's really besides the point. That the two fixes to IRnV and Flashlights aren't in when they said they would be is disheartening though.

Teddy wrote on Nov 22, 2011, 00:24:And your source for the bullshit you're spouting? Since when does Valve do the work to get a game/patch running in Steam? They may offer support to the developer, but I don't buy for one second that they do the work themselves.

So again, source or you're just as full of shit as anyone else that's spreading rumors and 'speculation'.

They certainly add the Steam DRM themselves, which is what he is talking about and what happened today.

eRe4s3r wrote on Nov 21, 2011, 22:50:Its highly unlikely steam would wrap/change the exe of a game without the game developer/publisher actually requesting it to be so.

No it isn't "highly unlikely". Get a clue before spouting more bullshit. Every executable and every patch needs to be modified by Valve to work with Steam so if Valve fucked up the original TESV.exe for some reason then they would absolutely (maybe even be required to) fix it all by themselves. I don't think that Beth was involved in this patch. Smells 100% like a Valve stunt in this case.

And your source for the bullshit you're spouting? Since when does Valve do the work to get a game/patch running in Steam? They may offer support to the developer, but I don't buy for one second that they do the work themselves.

So again, source or you're just as full of shit as anyone else that's spreading rumors and 'speculation'.

Flatline wrote on Nov 17, 2011, 00:18:Aside from the unusually craggy mountains which feel like they were auto-generated (I'm fine with craggy, but some of those crags are Mass Effect 1 levels of random peaks), the art direction is among the best I've ever seen.

Seeing smoke plumes from the city change directions in the breeze, watching a wave of wind sway a valley full of trees, the fog/clouds/mist flowing over mountains and forming off of peaks, it's amazing. The small things get me too: I was in the north country near the Mage College and watched as the sun came out after a wicked snow storm, and within a few minutes water was dripping from the edges of cliffs.

It's still buggy (for some reason on the PC my weapons are mapped backwards: The left hand on the screen is activated by the right mouse button), and the quests are glitchy, and some of the enemies are the definition of cheap, but I keep coming back for the art direction. Finding waterfalls and hot springs and other acts of nature are almost more encouragement to play than the quests.

7 million units? now bethesda have no excuse to patch this game as soon as possible. Every Fallout or ElderScrolls have been plagued with bugs at launch. Until its not polished, I will not buy it.

The weapons mapped to LM and RM aren't a bug, or a mistake. If you started off playing sword and board, you'd expect your left mouse button to attack and your right mouse to block with shield, or if you only had one weapon you'd fully expect left mouse to attack with it. That's where it came from. LM = Main hand, RM = offhand. If you want to swap them so that left is left and right is right, then feel free.

PHJF wrote on Nov 17, 2011, 07:25:All right I finished the main quest up last night (or should I say this morning) at a final level of... 51. I've been death incarnate for the past twenty levels so I figured I'd stop delaying the inevitable. Final boss went down in about 1.75 seconds.

They do if you're dual wielding the same item, never tried to get different ones to work, but I'd hazard a guess that it's just one more button press at worst.

Not if you've upgraded them.

Upgraded, as in smithing? All my equipment is upgraded including the sword and dagger I just tested dual wielding with.

Ratty wrote on Nov 17, 2011, 00:55:I swear some of the NPCs are voiced by Garrett himself, Stephen Russell.

That's because they are.

Darks wrote on Nov 17, 2011, 02:17:You guys realize that you can hot key weapons and spells in this game with the key pad and the number keys right?

You realise that the hotkeys don't actually work if you want to dual wield, right?

They do if you're dual wielding the same item, never tried to get different ones to work, but I'd hazard a guess that it's just one more button press at worst.

Edit: Just tested and hotkeys worked fine for dual wielding different items. You can't set them to the same key, but swapping between a 2hander/bow and my right hand weapon via it's hotkey brought up both my dual wielded weapons every single time.